The Swordsman of Tanosa: A Short Tale of the Middle Sea (2 page)

I
t had been
many years since Bafion was last in Ostenheim. So many that he expected things to have changed. He walked through the North Gate of the city and took in the sights, the sounds, the smells. He couldn’t see anything different as he made his way to the central square, Crossways, and found he was disappointed. So much had changed in his life. He felt the city should have also, but it had not.

The faces may have been different, but it was the same watchmen, the same market traders, the same petty criminals lurking on the fringes, all doing the same things they had been doing on the day he had left the city.

There was an inn that he knew of, not in a part of the city that he had frequented in his youth, but by reputation it had been clean, respectable, and served a good meal. It was also far from where he would expect to see anyone he knew during his few days in the city. If he was lucky, it would still be there.

B
afion ate a good breakfast
: eggs, cooked meats, pastries and fruit. He enjoyed it and for just a moment it allowed him to forget who he was. It was an extravagance, as was the hot bath he had taken the night before. Considering what he was intending to do, there was no point in having coin sitting in his purse for the gravediggers to take if things went wrong.

Bafion looked at the piece of paper Nozza had given him, and the contentment he had felt for so short a time fled. He knew the man named on the paper, the man he was supposed to kill. Nicolo dal Sason. He didn’t know if this was a coincidence or by design; Nozza liked to complicate things for his amusement. Bafion didn’t see how Nozza could have known, however. No one knew of the life Bafion had before. Almost everyone who did thought him dead. Nicolo dal Sason was one of two who knew him to be alive.

Bafion had avoided killing anyone for some time, and he felt that there was an irony to it that he would break this trend with someone he had once counted as a friend. The man responsible for taking part of his old life could, in dying, give him back some small imitation of it.

The greater irony was that some might have said Bafion had a personal reason—justification even—for what he was to do on Nozza’s behalf, but that reason belonged to a story that he didn’t want to drag from his memory.

He left the inn and walked toward Highgarden, where he expected to find his former friend, the man he would kill. Highgarden sat on a hill overlooking the rest of Ostenheim. It abandoned the tight, twisty streets, cobbled yards, and tall buildings of the city centre for broad avenues, parks, and magnificent townhouses.

Nozza had not told Bafion why he was to kill Nicolo, but he didn’t really care. If Nicolo was still living at his house in Highgarden, it wasn’t money problems, but he always had talent for finding trouble in unexpected places. He had certainly found it on this occasion.

Bafion reached the Westway River and crossed it, and then passed by the Academy where he had been taught to use a sword, where he had befriended Nicolo dal Sason, and where he had been happy. Life had seemed to be nothing but opportunity then, just as opportunity was presenting itself once again.

After the Academy came Highgarden. Once there, it did not take long to reach Nicolo’s house. As with the rest of the city, the house was very much as it had been the last time that Bafion had seen it. The lawns in front were still lush and trimmed to a uniform height, the shrubs and bushes manicured perfectly as though it had all been frozen in time. Dal Sason’s family had owned it for generations, ever since they had made the step from wealthy commoners to minor nobility.

Bafion looked at the house and strained to prevent a flood of memories washing through his mind. He felt reluctance to continue with his task for the first time since being given it. The onslaught on his resolve was almost overwhelming, but tucked in the middle of all the other memories was the one that he had been trying hardest to avoid; the one that made him want to kill Nicolo for more than just the money. Self-respect dictated that he should have killed Nicolo years before, but as with his old life, he had left self-respect behind when he fled to Tanosa.

There was a park opposite the house—the location for many more memories—but Bafion concentrated on what he had to do. He found a bench that provided him with a view of the house, sat, and waited.

A
decade
and more had passed since Bafion had last seen Nicolo, but there was no mistaking him. He left the house and skipped down the steps outside the door with the same carefree attitude he had as a younger man. It was as though he didn’t have a worry in the world. He headed in the direction of the city centre, a course that took him quite close to where Bafion was sitting. He didn’t notice Bafion however; he had rarely ever noticed things that didn’t involve him directly.

Bafion felt such a mix of emotion on seeing Nicolo that he didn’t know how to react. The initial joy of seeing an old friend was erased by the memory of the last time Bafion saw him, in tight embrace with Caroline. Anger replaced it, and pain.

Bafion watched him as he walked away. He carried a little more weight around the waist. His light brown hair was shorter than he had kept it in the old days and it showed hints of grey over his ears. His face was much the same though; a few more lines here and there, but still shaved smooth and displaying the prominent cleft in his chin that he had always seemed so proud of. The years had been kinder to him than Bafion, but that did not come as a surprise.

Bafion resisted the urge to do it there and then; it was too hasty, too public. Gentlemen did not conduct their affairs in such ways, and even if he forgot the fact most of the time, Bafion was still a gentleman, and on this day he would be expected to behave as one, a further example of the hypocrisy of the social conventions adhered to in the city.

H
e had
to wait most of the day for Nicolo to return, but when Bafion spotted him again, walking up the avenue, he had enough time to get to the gateway of the house and wait.

When Nicolo walked through the gate, Bafion stepped out from behind the bush. Nicolo stopped and his hand moved to the hilt of his sword. His expression of puzzlement and suspicion was replaced by one of uncertain recognition.

‘Bafion? Is that you?’

Bafion nodded but said nothing. He knew that if he had any sense he would have done it quickly—no chat, no time for thoughts or memories or anything else to get in the way. He found himself wanting to talk though, and he couldn’t explain why.

‘We were told you were killed at Dorry’s Ford,’ Nicolo said.

Bafion wondered if the reaction was too theatrical to be genuine. It was a lie. It had to be. He knew damn well Bafion didn’t die at Dorry’s Ford. He had to know about the letter Bafion sent home afterward, after he had fled to Tanosa.

‘Sadly, not the case,’ Bafion said. ‘But you already knew that.’

Nicolo’s face flushed, but he continued as though Bafion hadn’t spoken, something he often did in the past when caught out on a lie. It usually worked. Even knowing the tactic, Bafion questioned if his old friend’s surprise could be genuine.

‘They told us everyone was killed there,’ Nicolo said. ‘Everyone but the First Lord.’

Easier to believe a simple lie than a difficult truth. ‘I was the only other to survive. I woke up a few miles downstream from the ford, leaking from a dozen holes and half drowned. I was on my feet long enough to see the First Lord run as soon as it looked like things weren’t going our way, though.’

‘But no one saw you again. The Bannerets’ Gazette listed you as killed in battle.’

Too much talking. It was foolish but Bafion couldn’t stop himself. He had kept it bottled up for too many years. ‘When I finally got back to our lines, the First Lord had made it clear that the defeat was caused by the cowardice of his men; nothing to do with him turning tail at the first splash of blood. It’s an easy thing to make accusations against dead men, and when you have his connections and influence it seems it isn’t much harder to make them against live ones either. I was given a choice: return home in disgrace or disappear with a purse of crowns, a new name, and my old reputation intact; the only officer who stood firm in the face of inevitable defeat, tragically killed despite his bravery. The only disgrace was not standing up to his lies.’ Bafion wondered if she had shown him the letter, if he already knew the details.

‘How long have you been back in the city?’

‘A day.’

‘And where—’

‘Does it matter?’

Nicolo smiled. ‘No, I suppose it doesn’t. You didn’t have to go, you know. To the war, I mean. Caroline didn’t want you to. I didn’t either.’

Bafion shook his head and looked away, but said nothing. She didn’t want him to go, but she didn’t want him enough to live a quiet life with him either. She wanted to be the wife of a soldier, a war hero. Like a fool, Bafion had tried to live up to those notions, and marched out of the city beneath all those colourful banners, to the sound of drums and bugles and cheers. In that moment, he had been everything she wanted, but war wasn’t colourful banners, pretty uniforms, and heroic deeds, it was a stinking misery of blood and pain. He had only learned that for himself later. When he staggered back to his camp and heard the First Lord’s lies, he knew that no matter what, he could never be what she wanted again.

Hope died hard, though, so he had written the letter. He told her the truth, and where she could find him. He heard nothing back. It seemed the First Lord’s lie was a more attractive option for her. At least she had the consolation of pretending he had died a hero, and the sympathy that would earn her.

After months of silence, he had gone back to the city to make sure she got the letter, but it seemed that Nicolo’s sympathy was what she valued the most. The moment he saw them together, Bafion knew why the letter went unanswered. He had left the city immediately, thinking he would never return.

‘When I first saw you there, lurking behind the bush, I thought you were here to kill me.’ Nicolo laughed, but there was tension in it that suggested he wasn’t entirely convinced of the contrary.

Bafion said nothing.

‘Ah,’ Nicolo said. ‘The gambling?’

Bafion nodded. He had no idea if it was or not, but it seemed as likely a reason for him to be there as any.

‘Can I persuade you to go and say that you couldn’t find me? For Caroline’s sake? I’ve taken good care of her, you know.’

Bafion shook his head. That had been the wrong thing to say. He wanted to kill Nicolo for that alone.

‘I see.’ Without further thought, Nicolo drew his sword and in the same movement slashed at Bafion. Bafion took two quick steps back and drew. He hadn’t been expecting such a swift attack, but he never discounted the possibility and had remained on the balls of his feet during their brief conversation.

Behind the walls and bushes of the property, they were screened from the inquisitive eyes of passers-by. Nicolo had been a decent swordsman in his youth and that stood to him now, but he was older, slower. There had always been a swagger in his style, an element of ostentation that served no purpose other than to impress the impressionable. It was wasted on Bafion.

Bafion allowed Nicolo to press him back across the lawn. They had shared this dance countless times in the past but with blunt blades and no anger. One of them would die on this occasion, but the old familiarity made it difficult to absorb that fact.

Bafion was still stiff from his journey, despite the hot bath he had treated himself to. His knees ached, but they always did, and his shoulder throbbed in the spot where he had taken a spear that day at Dorry’s Ford. The pain was his constant companion, but like any companion that speaks too much, Bafion had learned to ignore it.

He parried two quick thrusts, first to the right, then to the left; Nicolo still had some speed hidden behind his paunch, but it was not enough. Bafion stepped forward and forced Nicolo’s sword down with his own as he went. The pressure pulled Nicolo forward and allowed Bafion to smash his elbow into Nicolo’s face. He stumbled back stunned, not only by the blow but also by the ungracious attack. He didn’t seem to fully appreciate that this was a killing, not a duel.

Bafion didn’t want to be about it any longer than was necessary. With a flick of his wrist, he pushed Nicolo’s sword out of the way and before he could recover from the elbow to his face, Bafion finished him with a thrust through the chest. He couldn’t help but think that the fight had been some of the best swordplay he had produced in some time. Clean, precise, lethal. It gave him hope for the arena.

Nicolo’s mouth moved. Despite himself, Bafion strained to hear. It sounded like he was saying ‘the letter’. Bafion felt oddly disappointed. Part of him wanted to believe that it had never reached its destination, that they had genuinely thought him dead.

Nicolo’s mouth continued to move, but there was no more sound. He was as good as dead, he just hadn’t realised it yet. He had walked out of his house that morning without a care in the world, as was always his way, and now he was drowning in his own blood. Too much for any man to take in, least of all the one dying, Bafion thought. Nicolo took rasping staccato breaths and remained standing until Bafion pulled his sword out. With the support it provided gone, Nicolo fell to the cobbled path.

T
he fight had attracted
attention from within the house. The front door opened and a woman in an elegant pale blue dress walked out. She cried in anguish when she saw Nicolo bleeding on the cobbles. She rushed down the steps to where he lay, oblivious to Bafion. He recognised her and his heart jumped in his chest. Caroline. He should not have been surprised, but even when Nicolo had mentioned her he hadn’t expected to see her, nor prepared himself for the effect that it would have on him.

She knelt beside Nicolo and took his lifeless hand in hers. She looked up at Bafion. Tears streaked her makeup and her eyes widened as she recognised him. Her look in that instant caused him more pain than any sword ever had, more shame than he had thought possible. The prospect of the life a winning duel in the arena could give him felt hollow, worthless. Nothing could bring back what he had lost, or heal the wound he carried inside.